sCene 55 - ᴅemonsᴛraᴛe Conᴛroʟ

The best thing about helping out Jason at the Silver Justice show was that it helped loosen me up while reaching out to potential editors. It was hard enough sending business emails, and then planning interviews and asking for samples felt like it would be overwhelming, but after the first few it became pretty easy. I wasn’t worried about rejection, but I also didn’t want to come off as annoying or needy. I was just trying to grow my business, right?

Across a week I ended up having plenty of great conversations with potential editors, and even when someone said they couldn’t take the work, they had other people they wanted to recommend. Once I had about five people who were interested, I gave each of them the same footage and asked if they could demonstrate how they would edit it. That was also to give Dale time to do background checks. No one came up as a red flag on the basic check, so it gave me chances to keep up with the candidates and try to dial-in on who I was more interested in.

One editor in particular actually asked what I use before doing their work. The others didn’t, so I didn’t offer that information. It was definitely interesting to think that my own skills would be assessed like that, but my hope really was for them to edit as close to how I do. It isn’t like I did a lot of funny effects or anything. I just want to be confident my viewers don’t immediately know something is different.

Meanwhile I was trying to spend more time with Nai-bu when she was around. She told me she was working on potions, but a lot of the work was more about setting it up and letting it brew, so she often found herself just hanging around the house and reading. I was trying to take more chances for us to cuddle, but sometimes she would be more focused on reading and not be willing to break away. It was getting a little frustrating.

It wasn’t like she was avoiding me, and she’d give me her attention when I was done streaming for the day or took the day off, but she kept acting like I should focus on my work. To mess with her a little, I decided to pretend to be exercising in the living room while she was reading.

As I loudly counted some sit ups I was trying to do on an open bit of floor in the living room, Nai-bu looked up from her book and sighed. “You’re not even doing them right!”

Nai-bu slid off the couch and sat on my feet to keep them in place. She pushed my knees together and told me to keep my hands straight at my sides. She then told me I had to keep a pace and that she would direct me. The moment she said up, I really tried, but I could barely get up very high, before she said down and I just dropped. She was staring at my waist when she said to come up again. I was kinda shocked at how serious she was taking it.

“You know a lot about this don’t you?” I said, trying to lift myself to look like I can even do one good sit up.

“I actually did tennis for a few years in high school, when things were getting better.” Nai-bu said, still staring at my waist. “At first I just wanted an excuse to be around other girls more, but I did get really into it. And my parents liked saying they had a tennis-playing daughter.”

I chuckled, still struggling. “Might as well have just played softball so they’d have less questions now.”

“They’d never have caught on. But since college I just do some basic workouts every so often to keep up with my health.” Nai-bu said this, then smiled. “There you go! That’s what you should be trying for!”

She was congratulating me for doing a complete sit up, but as I awkwardly hovered there, the ruse was up. I had actually formed my tail to support myself, but now I couldn’t lean back down. As she looked around to see it, she immediately asked if I was hungry.

“No! I’ve actually been doing good!” I might have been exaggerating, but I really wasn’t having any problems. “I can control when I transform a lot better now. Like on command even.”

“Oh!” Nai-bu sounded excited. I definitely didn’t expect that. “What can you do?”

It was a little embarrassing being put on the spot like that. I pulled myself back to get my legs out, then held up one of my feet before shifting it to my alien foot’s shape, but still the size of my normal foot. After turning it back, I held my hand up, and made it bigger and bigger and bigger, but no scales or anything. Once it was like twice the size of my head, I started shrinking it back down.

“I don’t always feel like I can hold these partial transformations, but controlling my body’s size is kinda new. It just doesn’t work the same on all of my body.” I really didn’t want to explain how I could make my chest scaly, but not bigger.

“What about your head?” Nai-bu asked this like it was really important. “Can you transform your head?”

“Uh…yeah…” I said, making my head a little bigger slowly.

Hands and feet were a little more fun, but growing my head made my neck and even my torso start to grow, like a reflex to support my head. It was one of the few transformations that came more like a package deal. I stopped because after a while it felt like my breasts were being absorbed into my chest, and reverted my head back to normal. The entire time Nai-bu was watching me like she was thinking really hard.

I should have asked more in the moment, but it just felt good to show her how good I was doing. I did not get the same feeling when talking to Jason the next day about it.

“Show me.” Jason said, coolly.

“Definitely not.” I always drew the line when it felt like an alien research thing.

The therapy sessions had basically become excuses for Jason to come over, hang out, and talk about other stuff. He definitely highlighted that he felt the group that went out to eat liked me and Nai-bu, and that his mom sounded less upset about seeing me than he expected. These weren’t exactly accolades to me, but I knew he was trying.

“Are you going to tell Dale about being able to control your body?” Jason asked, sipping his beer.

I nearly scoffed. “Since he hasn’t been involved in changing my diet, probably not. He’ll ask way too many questions.”

“Do you think Nai-bu feels better knowing you can control yourself now?” He really couldn’t ask stupider questions.

“She hasn’t really seemed worried about it. She’s focused on learning witch stuff right now.” She’s made her way through a lot of books. Like she is back in school or something.

Jason thought for a moment. “Do you feel safe with her learning magic?”

“If it can keep her safe, I’m happy to have it.”